


Android Fried Chicken

by greglet



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Gen, Shenanigans, accidental animal death, chicken puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 21:52:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8914219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greglet/pseuds/greglet
Summary: John and Dorian get caught in a shoot up and Dorian leaves with an ill-fated pet. Feathers are ruffled, fur flies and beaks are clipped when John flies into a rage, not unlike a headless chicken.Written as a birthday gift for a friend,  Shelb after an  unfortunate misunderstanding





	

**Author's Note:**

> if you want an explanation: [ here it is ](http://greglet.tumblr.com/post/148411125352/when-someone-me-gets-the-wrong-end-of-the-stick)

It had been a long-game scheme. The group who put up the fight were serial killers, no other way to put it. By infecting chickens with certain viruses, their eggs were then infected and distributed. By the time anyone knew they were ill, it was too late. In a way it was fortunate the eggs were only distributed at markets, not supermarkets. Still, John wasn’t touching eggs for at least a month. His feelings towards eggs right now felt how scrambled eggs looked, and after seeing and hearing all the yolks dripping from their containers post-shoot up, John wondered if he really needed eggs in his diet at all. Or maybe, in his diet wouldn’t be an issue if he wasn’t reminded of the squelch of the chicken goo every time he moved - criminals might be idiots, but that lot in the barn managed to somehow spray him, Dorian and the rest of his backup in the amber swill.

John scraped his boots off the fence with his face in a deep scowl after stepping in something thick and brown, which only added to the disgusting colour scheme staining his black uniform. He used to say he liked the country, but that was before he’d been. He muttered and sighed with a grump about the dirtied leather boots before he caught sight of Dorian making his way over and sliding in the car; his purple wounds shining in the late afternoon sun. Giving his boots one last wipe through the grass, John slumped into the cruiser.

“What took you so lo-” John was abruptly cut off by the trilling of a chicken that was sitting wrapped in a towel in Dorian’s lap. “Is that a chicken?” John barked, all hope of a quiet journey back to base gone. 

“She was going to be euthanised due to the virus, but as long as no one sells her eggs, she will live for another twelve, possibly fourteen years.” 

“No, no way, put it back, now, before it shits on my seats-” 

“Looks like you’ve managed that yourself-” 

“Dorian-” 

“I’m not leaving her, she’s an Ohiki True Bantam - she’s rare, endangered-” 

“Dorian, it’s a fucking chicken, get it the hell out my car!” 

“John, you’re making her uncomfortable-” The chicken gurgled from within the towel that Dorian held. “Lower your voice.” 

John took a breath and shook his head. “This isn’t happening, I don’t know why I’m dreaming about being in the car with you holding a damn chicken, but it’s not happening.” 

Dorian went quiet for a moment before the chicken clucked. “I’ve already asked Rudy-” 

“Did you remember to clarify ‘Chicken’ and not ‘chick’ when you called and asked for permission?” Dorian’s silence, pursed lips, and glance out the window of the stationary car told John everything. “Well, I hope the chick likes Barry White since he’ll be playing when you get back.” John, with a pissed off tut, started the car and swung it around and out the farm gates. “A goddamn shootout in a barn and you come back with a pet.” 

“I thought you preferred my bleeding heart?” Dorian challenged, an edge of sarcasm to his voice that John didn’t take well. 

“It’s gonna be more than your heart that’s bleeding if it gets it’s mess anywhere.” John threatened, but with the chicken wrapped like a living fajita, he couldn’t realistically expect it to do anything within the next twenty minutes to harm his interior. “Or you get your mess anywhere, for that matter - look at the state of you, you’re drippin’ indigo.” John sounded out the colour, knowing that one of their favourite things to disagree on was the colours inside Dorian.

“Heather.” Dorian corrected while John rolled his eyes. “Rudy knows already, he says he can fix most of the damage by tomorrow.” 

“Great.” John muttered, still watching to make sure Dorian’s new pet wasn’t doing anything it shouldn’t. “Did you ask anyone if you could take that? I’m not paying any bills for farm property, that’s comin’ out your pocket.” 

“I don’t get paid, John-”

“Exactly.” John finished, getting his point across that should any surcharge come with this new pet, John was playing, or paying, no part in it. Except he definitely was and he knew it already. Dammit. “Man, why? Why Clucky? This is stupid, what happens when it gets fleas - if it doesn’t already - what happens when it needs out? Do you think Rudy is gonna be cool with grain all up in his systems?” 

“She isn’t a dog, John, she doesn’t need walked, besides, you know Rudy has that open space at the back of his lab, she can have a run there.” Dorian’s evidence-based and problem-solving logic picked at John’s nerves efficiently, and Dorian was quick to notice the clench of John’s jaw; the first sign of Mr Friendly’s pattern of upset.

“A run,” John repeated. “Fantastic.” 

Dorian had sensed that any more chat about the poor chicken he rescued would only contribute to a slimmer chance of getting to keep her. This had him working to keep a quiet calm by taking an interest in passing scenery from rural to urban. They had only made it to the outskirts of the city, just about to join the freeway, when the chicken started making noises, ending the safe silence between them.

“Dorian, shut it up.” The clucking and crowing was rattling in John’s ears and he never had much patience to begin with. “Shut it up, now, or it’s going to be really rare.” John warned through his teeth. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong-” Dorian flinched back as the chicken fought free of it’s bind, it’s wings spread out across John’s field of vision, flapping violently, as he held on the wheel as best he could while shouting after Dorian.

“What the fuck, Dorian,” The flapping and vicious squawking continued and John swerved at the scream of a horn from the lane over. “Dorian-” 

“She’s laying-” 

“I don’t care what she’s laying, get her under control now!” John reached up to swipe the wing in his face back towards Dorian, while Dorian reached out to grab the body of the chicken that was currently trying to jump onto the dashboard of the cruiser. In the briefest moment, John saw it happen all at once: Dorian’s injuries from the shootout had left some of the wires in his palms exposed, so when he reached for the chicken his palms shocked and sparked against its sides, running a voltage so high it sizzled while simultaneously paralysing, cooking and exploding the chicken across the cruiser. 

There was a stunning silence as the fury built and the chicken-juice dripped. John was seething as he grit his teeth and spit out two feathers while Dorian was frozen in the spot, holding less than half of a decaying, burnt and smoking chicken carcass between his hands. The windows were coated in a mix of brown feathers, red innards, white cooked chicken and general bird bits. Sensing a clouded windscreen, the confused wipers turned on automatically, squeaking against the dry external glass, unable to find the issue.

“J-”

“Do not.” John couldn’t lift his eyes to glare at him, he couldn’t do anything but keep his hands planted to the only part of the steering wheel that was dry, and attempt to drive back to Delta without pulling his gun. For the rest of the fifteen minute journey they were painfully silent - the only noise within the car was the dripping and unpeeling of chicken from the roof and sides of the cruiser. Dorian was cemented in the same position, still holding onto a mess of bones, meat and feathers. Under the towel wrapped around his left leg and thigh was the only part of him that was chicken-free. John, however, had had no protection from the explosion and when he slammed on the breaks at the department and threw himself out the car, he didn’t stop to consider the slopping thud of the sludge that was vaulted off his lap as he stood. Instead, he thundered straight down to Maldonado's office, not caring for the bloody brown footprints he was leaving as he marched. 

When John barged into his Captain’s office, covered and dripping in a painful palette of reds, browns and yellows, Sandra stood immediately, a scowl pulling at her brow at the state of him. 

“Out-”

“Captain, you got-

“Now!” She snarled as he still tried to gesture over her. “I don’t care what you’ve done or what that is but it is not ruining my office - Conference Room B, John.” He left her office, still fuming and now there was chicken splattered over her glass door. He’d be cleaning that later, he could tell. John shouldered his way into the conference room, but that didn’t lessen the mess any - he’d used the wrong shoulder, or his right one, that was coated in a thick paste of blood and feathers. He could see Paulie watching him, or at least he was watching him before he double over in laughter. The short jokes were coming for him when John got out of here. 

“What the hell happened to you? I sent you to a barn, not a slaughter house.” Sandra started, making her way around John to stand closer to the opposite side of the table and the clean half of the room.

“D-”

“Where’s Dorian?” 

John paused to look behind him, realising with a stunted sigh that Dorian was still in the car, probably holding onto the body of the recently deceased bloody, self-exploding piñata. “In the car.” 

“Get him.” 

With a clench of his jaw, and the rest of his muscles, he turned on his heels, his feathered hand reached for the door just to find an equally bloody and feathered Dorian, still holding onto the smouldering remains, staring at him helplessly. John grit his teeth and with no more than a steely eye, turned away from him, reaching for a chair to sit. 

“Don’t touch-” Sandra yelped just as John’s fingers grasped the top. She sighed and John let it go while his rage at being treated like a sticky toddler had his hands in tight, slimey fists. “What the hell is that?” 

“An Ohiki True Banta-”

“A dead chicken.” They spoke over each other, earning an angry glance to and from each other; Dorian angry at John for being blunt, and John angry at Dorian for everything else. 

“Why is it in my precinct?” Sandra, her hand on a hip and the other clicking a pen in penting frustration. “Just tell me what happened.”

Dorian tried to open his mouth but a strong hand pushed in front of him by John silenced him as his chicken continued to drip around their feet. 

“Mr Sanders, here, tried to rescue one of the infected chickens from the barn-” 

“She’s rare, her species is endangered.” Dorian countered.

“I told him no way, put the thing back and he didn’t.” 

“Rudy said it was okay.” Dorian slipped in quietly, causing John to turn, shaking a finger. 

“No, no, you didn’t tell Rudy you were bringing him a chicken you told Rudy you were bring a chick home-”

“I told him she required grain, vegetables and a nest.”

“That’s not specific enough and you know it-” 

“Kennex!” Sandra shouted, her lips pulled into a snarl. “Why are you bleeding on my floor?” 

“Well, we drove away from the barn and Daffy here-” John pointed to the carcass, which he just realised had a head lolling about over Dorian’s hand. He didn’t want to gag but the sight unsettled him enough to feel his throat dry up as he took a breath to continue. 

“Daffy is a duck, it’s in the name; Daffy Duck.” Dorian bitterly corrected.

“Started flappin’ about in the car-” John gestured again, viciously ignoring Dorian now, and as his anger came to the surface as he started to raise his voice. “I told him, get the damn thing under control before it’s even rarer and what does he do? He fries it.” 

“You what?” Sandra said, shaking her head in disbelief, prompting for clarification.

“Captain, in the struggle at the barn I engaged in hand to hand combat with an armed perp, they pulled their gun on me and as I covered my hands around it to take it off them, they pulled the trigger.” Sandra shrugged, pushing for the point. “When I reached for the chicken, the exposed circuits in my palms provided a charge high enough to paralyse and explode the animal in the car.” Dorian’s jaw locked and with the way he was still holding the chicken, it was obvious he regretted it. 

“So, the colonel cooked Big Bird in the car and there’s now chicken all over the fucking cruiser.” 

“Well, you better get it cleaned.”

“No, Captain, it has to go to the valet, you don’t-” 

“Did the valet get chicken in the cruiser?”

“No, but he did-” Referring to Dorian who was looking solemnly at the mess in his hands.

“And who let him have the chicken in the first place?” 

“Not me, Captain, I told him to put it back and he didn’t-” 

“You drove off with the chicken in the car, that was your decision, that’s on you.” Sandra said with a point of her pen before she sneered at the corpse. “Get that thing in the damn trash before I need to call health and safety.” Sandra gave them a wide berth and she moved to leave. “Clean that car - and go home, you smell disgusting.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry to the chicken.  
> i hope after reading this you laughed bc it was funny and is funny to me and my friend but jeez.... what a fuck up. anyways, let me know your thoughts..


End file.
